Conversations With A Cannibal
by angelofjoy
Summary: This is a collection of short stories that occure just before the TV show starts. Hannibal is a practicing psychiatrist and always looking for his next victim. Each case is different, based on characters from pop culture but I don't want to call it a crossover. I just like the idea of Hannibal meeting different people and deciding if they are worthy or if they should be food.
1. Introduction To The Food Bank

**_A/N: This is just the beginning of a collection of conversations that Hannibal will have with different people and character from pop culture. All the conversations will take place in the time just before the beginning of the TV show. Hannibal has not yet met Will Graham and is just carrying on in his bubble._**

Introduction To The Food Bank

Doctor Hannibal Lector was a man of habit and routine. He had a set of principles by which he lived his life and two worlds in which he moved. He was a man of taste and class. He loved good food and fine company, and he marvelled at the beauties of the civilized world. On the other hand, however, he was a man of great horrors and evil, though in his mind he saw himself as just another very dedicated civil servant.

Hannibal Lector believed that there were two kinds of people in the world - the useful and the rude. Useful people were intriguing, entertaining and just the sorts to be allowed to populate the planet earth. The rude belonged in the food bank because if one was to act like a pig then one deserved to be eaten like a pig, and even then that was unfair to the pigs. Because a pig was not rude. No, it lived its life as any animal would and served a purpose to the greater good, but rude people are less than pigs. They are a stain, a plague, a nuisance and don't deserve to hold a place in the beautiful world that Hannibal was creating.

You see, whenever possible, Hannibal Lector took it upon himself to rid the world of the ignorant and rude. And as he was brought up to appreciate the finer things in life and the thing that he had, and not to be wasteful, Hannibal used the rude to fill his freezers and nourish his body.

For it was that Doctor Hannibal Lector, criminal psychiatrist and culinary master, was a cannibal and a monster. He was very likely to make you into dinner if you proved to be useless or repulsive.

Doctor Lector, therefore, surrounded himself with beautiful things, expensive and delicious foods, fine clothing, great performers and well educated minds. And for those people whom he liked he was hospitable, loyal and giving. He was one of the top professionals in his field with a large clientele and occasionally a friend or two within the law enforcement community.

He was highly respected and little suspected of the things that he ultimately did in the secret spaces he kept for himself. If you needed to find the good doctor you need only make and appointment or call ahead before dropping by his home. He would welcome you with opened arms and a healthy appetite.

As mentioned, Hannibal was a creature of habit and ran his practice as tightly as a ship commander. Hannibal was always punctual, silent in his listening and gracious with his advice.

He was very good at his job, had many success stories to boast of, if he were a boastful man. He kept hours as regular as the tides. He was in his office by eight in the morning, with his first clients always booked for nine sharp, and he took great pleasure in keeping the first appointment for possible new clients.

First impressions were always the most important part of any meeting for Hannibal. So he always wore a stunning suit to work in, kept his office immaculately clean and greeted his new patients at the door. It was in those first moments when Hannibal usually decided how to classify his patients, even before they took a seat in one of his chairs.

Many questions were answered in those first moments. Friends or Foe? Proper or Scruffy? In desperate need of a guiding hand and a sympathetic ear or are they deceptive, deceiving and manipulative? But most of all, Hannibal would ask himself if the new being before him was worthy of a conversation or whether they belonged in a cooker.

Usually, in those first moments, Hannibal Lector had already made up his mind but that never stopped him from playing with his food. It gave him a lot of time to think about what to make, how to prepared it and present it, and ultimately how to symbolically dispose of the remains. Because Hannibal always left his trash better than when he found it.

Occasionally a potential meal would intrigue him enough for a second or third meeting. Some rare case made fit into a filing system for a rainy day or when he would be cooking for guests. But most of the time, Hannibal liked to cook and kill on a whim. Whenever he was truly _hungry_.

Sometimes he took pieces of a person, leaving them to learn a lesson before they died. Because Hannibal like the idea of a human consciousness being more than just a body, and he hoped that he could at least make a difference in this life so as to change a person for the next. Death was inevitable and delicious in Hannibal's world but it was also a learning opportunity.

And so it was that Hannibal had established himself, made a name or rather several to carry him through any possible suspicions and carved out his place in the world he was determined to put beauty into and take ugliness out of. For Hannibal, his life was meant for a greater good and he would see and hear and taste it all first hand. And when his time in this place, with these people, was over, by choice or by necessity, he would move on to bring sophistication, beauty and polite society to another dark and dreary part of the world.

For now he was content, well fed and looking forward to those he may mould into better people. As for the others, he deemed them lucky to wind up in a place like his belly. Because what else were they good for but to stock his food bank?


	2. Never A Tale Of More Woe

**A/N: I had every intention of doing someone different for this first Conversation, but a prompt was given to me as part of the October Challenge over at The Beta Branch and this came out of it. And so this is one of my Five Fics for Fave Fandoms. More are scattered among my other stories! Happy Halloween!**

 **Based on Prompt** **_"We'll be the broken lovers with the poison cup"_**

 _Never A Tale Of More Woe_

Doctor Hannibal Lector sat across from a man who seemed so agitated and confused it was almost amusing, but he couldn't bring himself to see the humour in it. Upon entering the office space, for his first and likely his only meeting with the illustrious doctor, the man seemed to truly need help, a brand of help that Lector could provide.

Truth be told, Hannibal was not a heartless man, just a man of different principles and appetites... He believed in helping people, if they deserved help. Help from a man like Hannibal was earned and people who were rude were not worthy. Hannibal could tell from the moment he'd walked in, and almost from that very moment he knew that the young man would not be one to find the help he needed. Hannibal had failed him already.

The file had been presented to Hannibal by a mutual acquaintance within the psychiatric community. It wasn't a referral, it wasn't a psych evaluation, but a favour asked of a man whom many held in high esteem and yet whom people knew nothing about. It wasn't odd for different people to come and go from within Hannibal's circle of influence; he worked with the FBI, other doctors, and the general public. His practice was well known, his success stories boasted of, and his failures taken to heart. Then there were the ones that simply didn't exist, or perhaps, they simply disappeared. They had become lunch.

This man had a checkered past and a naivety that seemed to constantly get him in trouble. Other doctors had diagnosed him with disorder after disorder, many settled on obsessive compulsive. But nothing they did seemed to set the young man straight, and so he made his own way, stumbling through life.

Hannibal had every intention of turning him away, based on reputation alone, but he was curious enough to take a glance at the files handed to him by his good friend, and protégé of sorts, Alana Bloom. Truthfully, Alana had begged, and so Hannibal had picked up the lengthy texts and found a pattern. It was only then that he reached out to the young man made the appointment. This Hannibal did on his own because of the lack of a secretary - romantic whims was the excuse he gave - and the boy was shocked to hear of how far his case had gone.

In anticipation of the first meeting, as was his routine with most of his potential clients, Hannibal did extensive research into the young man - both legal and illegal. All of his files were obtained for medical purposes. Copies of the criminal cases were reviewed and discredited based on his medical opinion, and then, just for fun, Hannibal took an evening to follow the young man around - secretly.

He'd watch him leave his house with a group that he assumed were friends, they went out to a party, drank a good deal, and then caused a bit of a scene with a rival family. Hannibal left before things got heated - he knew better than to be seen in situations such as this - and returned to his home convinced that the boy would be very interesting in a one-on-one situation.

When the time of the appointment arrived, Hannibal opened the door to the waiting room. He saw the young man hunched over, with his head between his legs and his feet beating rhythmically on the floor. Hannibal knew something was very wrong. The young man was gaunt, with dark circles around his eyes and great redness in his cheeks. His hair was pristine, his dress one of wealth, but his character was frazzled and his eyes were hopeless.

He stood with a jump, as if Hannibal had caught him off guard, and managed only a "Good Morning, Doctor Lector" as he moved forward and shook hands with the immaculate man before him. The handshake was firm, one of business, or of one who knew the art of business, but there was a tremor there. A sickening smell of panic wafted off of him and assaulted Hannibal's heightened sense of smell.

Pleasantries were exchanged, Hannibal ushered the man into the office space, and motioned to the two chairs that faced one another. The young man sat, Hannibal followed suit, and then the staring began. Generally speaking, once the session had started, Hannibal let the patient begin. For a long moment, Hannibal sat in silence while the young man became more and more agitated before he stood and began pacing.

"What should I do, Doctor? Am I without hope? Am I broken, disturbed? Why would I think like this?" the man asked as he fell into the seat, almost violently, and it squeaked under his weight. "I assume you know of my situation or I would not have crossed your radar. I was not looking for a new psychiatrist, and Doctor Bloom and I were playing cat and mouse for far too long, so you must have been handed my case. Am I broken, unfixable, doomed to be this way for the rest of my life? What is your first impression? What is your diagnosis? What is my worth in this world of greed and lust?"

"Mr. Montague, if you were without hope, would you have come to me in the first place?" Hannibal asked calmly. He rested his hands in his lap and stared across the space. He barely moved and there was a laser-like precision in his eyes.

"I suppose not. I'm usually prone to rushing into things and jumping to conclusions before seeing the whole picture."

"I know, I've read your files, criminal and psychiatric. Take a deep breath and let's talk a moment. If you think better on your feet, then by all means, but let's work this out together."

"But I killed a man."

"It was self defence."

"The judge may have ruled that way but the family of my victim will never see it like that, and I don't. The blood is on my hands."

"You stepped in to assist a cousin, am I correct, a cousin who shows more violent tendencies than yourself?"

"He is dead now," Montague sighed and stood again. "Dead because of me and because I should have known better. Families who have never seen eye to eye will never see eye to eye and I was a fool to think that I could change that, or that happiness and love could change a lifelong feud."

"Death has a strange way of changing what may never have changed, sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse."

"Are you saying I should kill myself, Doctor?" There was disdain in his tone as the young man paced. He laughed and threw up his hands in defeat.

"No, there has been quite enough death in your tragic tale, but you are not the only one involved and you are seeing this as very one sided."

"We'll be the broken lovers..."

"I beg your pardon?" Hannibal asked and raised an eyebrow to the young man.

"Nothing, it was just something she said."

"She?"

"My wife."

"Ah yes, another one of your compulsions, but perhaps the whim that will ground you."

"We were in love. We are in love, but where shall we live?"

"There are ways to live, away from everything and anything."

"Could you help me disappear?"

"Unfortunately, that is not my forte, but I can help you cope with the situation," Hannibal lied.

"More medication?"

"Has medication ever worked?"

"No."

"Because you do not take it as prescribed."

"I don't like how it makes me feel."

"Fair enough, so what is to be done then?" Hannibal asked as he cocked his head.

"I should take my wife and leave, run away and make a new life, as far away from our parents and their influence as we can get. We should do it tonight, today, this very moment. I shouldn't have come here at all. I shouldn't have left her alone."

"Now hold on, try to control you compulsions. Take a deep breath and think."

The man fell into his chair once more, breathing heavily as his phone rang.

"I'm so sorry, I told everyone that I was in a session. How rude of me. I am so sorry," the young man panicked, "it's only that if there was an emergency they were to call. He was to call. He's calling, something has happened." Montague's panic rose and he held the phone out for Hannibal to see.

"Then you must take it," Hannibal said and he stood. "I'll give you a moment alone," he added and turned toward the waiting room door. "Stay calm."

Beyond the door, Hannibal could hear the muffled voice of his frantic patient. The conversation was not going well. The young man was more agitated then when he arrived and there was nothing that he could do to help. The talking and pacing stopped and was followed by hurried footsteps to the door. There was a moment of quiet before the door flew open.

"I must go," the young man stated as he threw open the waiting room door, his face streaked with tears.

"Is there anything I can do?" Hannibal asked and there was genuine concern in his voice.

"There is not, my wife is dead. I must go to her," the young man sobbed.

"I am sorry for your loss, but I should not let you leave in this condition. It would be reckless. Take a moment to calm yourself and I will come with you. I'll drive."

"No, I would not want to put you in the middle of this. The family will blame me, there will be violence. I must go now and see her before they find out."

"Romeo, what are you going to do?" Hannibal stood towering like a statue and as still as the breathless. "I cannot in good conscience let you go."

"But you will, because you understand what this means to a man like me."

"I do," Hannibal said and bowed his head, "but know that I will be calling the police once you are gone. You may have the head start, so take it and make it count."

"Thank you," Romeo stated and rushed out of the office.

Hannibal waited for the doors to slam shut to announce the departure of the poor man, before he moved across the office and around to his desk. He unbuttoned his suit coat and, with a toss, sat down. He glanced at his watch, jotted a simple note in the margin of his daybook and closed the file he'd opened on the young man. A second glance at his watch and he sighed, looking to the telephone that sat silently on his desk.

"It's a pity, I could have helped this one but two toxic people will be toxic together. As curious as I wish to be, I know how this will end," Hannibal said to himself and reached for the phone receiver but hesitated once more. After another long moment of thought he picked up the phone, dialled the number and spoke mechanically as he made his report and ended the call. He then leaned back in his chair and sighed once more.

"He wouldn't even make a salvageable entree, he would have tasted of fear. What a waste." Hannibal scooped the file off his desk and stood from his seat. He walked to the fireplace and tossed the file into it. He knew he would never see Romeo Montague alive again.


End file.
